Delaware judge sets Oct. 17 trial in Twitter's lawsuit against Elon Musk

July 29 (UPI) -- The civil trial pitting social media giant Twitter against billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk will take place in a Delaware Chancery Court on Oct. 17, a judge decided in a filing released late Thursday in the fast-track court case.

The five-day trial was a victory for Twitter, which asked for the expedited process over Musk's agreement to buy the platform for $44 billion before walking away from the deal. Musk, whose companies include Tesla Motors and SpaceX, had objected to the fast-track lawsuit.

Musk claims Twitter violated the deal by repeatedly "resisting and thwarting" his right to information about the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform.

Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick told attorneys for Twitter and Musk of a number of aggressive deadlines to prepare for a possible trial.

They were ordered to serve initial discovery requests to third parties by Aug. 1 and finish depositions by Sept. 29.

"Discovery should not be requested or withheld in an effort to inflict unreasonable demands on or extract unreasonable benefits from the opposing party," McCormick said in the filing, according to CNBC.

Since Musk launched his bid to purchase Twitter in April, technology stocks overall have lost 26% in value, while many smaller tech stocks have lost up to 70%. Tesla shares, which Musk was using to support the deal, lost significant value as well.